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An anonymous reader writes "Steam is now being used by thousands of gamers running a Linux OS, and Valve has got to the point where they are happy to start urging Windows users to make the switch. Proof of that comes from a 'Join the Beta' promotion on the homepage of Steam suggesting you try Steam for Linux. There's even a download link to get Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which removes yet another barrier to entry. With Gabe Newell's clear hatred of Windows 8, this shouldn't be a surprising move. We aren't going to see another version of Windows appear for a few years, so in Valve's eyes pushing Linux to gamers makes a lot of sense."

It is worth pointing out that Microsoft has promised a more regular windows release so the comment of a few years wait for next Windows isn't correct. (or maybe not, maybe Microsoft will not deliver on its "promise").

Not to mention until they find a way to fix the BIG PROBLEM which is a good 90%+ of the games are built around DirectX and therefor won't run on Linux? You can give it up. I mean who wants Steam on Linux when it has less selection than the already piss poor Steam for Mac?

Sure they could try to incorporate Wine into Steam but I wouldn't be surprised if Valve ends up with a couple of years worth of lawsuits from MSFT which rightly or wrongly most likely MSFT WILL WIN since most of the Wine development is done in Europe where the laws on reverse engineering are VERY lax compared to ours. In the USA you had better use clean room procedures with strict separation between the one looking at the code to be reverse engineered and the guy writing the replacement.

So I'm sorry but I just don't see how this is gonna get any traction. Not only will you not find Linux being sold on any machines in any B&M stores but when all the hottest games use a framework that you don't have and won't run without serious hoop jumping? Hell the whole point of Steam is its a "push button and get game" service and if the only way you can run the majority of games is to deal with a couple of pages of CLI crap and a LOT of finger crossing because most of the games run DirectX I don't see many people putting up with it.

I still think this is all smoke and mirrors though, the REAL reason for Steam on Linux is Valve's Steambox which will run a GPL V2 only Linux (so they can use the hardware DRM that consoles require) and they are just letting the community beta test the software before it goes into production. Makes sense, if the console is a hit they can talk more devs into porting to OpenGL on Steambox and if they put out a console it needs to be solid on the software front, hence the beta testing. I just don't see how Steam on Linux could be the end goal, not with so many show stopping problems.

Uhhh...DirectX really isn't much of a moving target since Win 8 has flopped, I'd say a good 80% of the games either are or still have support for DirectX 9C while I can only think of a couple of games that are DirectX 10+ only (Halo 2, Just Cause II being the only ones I can think of) so if you could incorporate a perfect DirectX 9C you would have probably 80%+ game support.

Again though rightly or wrongly our system on reverse engineering is a LOT more strict than the EU or Asia and since a large portion of

The release date is 2015, which makes it a standard 3 years per release. Since they have already said ALL versions, not just Pro, will get a full 10 years of support this will allow businesses to skip a couple of releases (as they did by skipping Vista for 7, and are now skipping 8) without losing support while basically using the consumers for the beta testers for the features that will end up in the business friendly odd releases.

Frankly I don't know why FOSS users would bitch about this since they are basically copying your "odd/even" or "LTS/regular" release concepts. If the reports are correct, which we've seen no indication that they aren't and a lot of evidence (Surface, MSFT stores, MSFT building their own hardware) that they are what you are gonna see with Windows is the same thing Apple users have had with OSX for ages, a $40 a pop upgrade and faster releases because like OSX instead of trying to come up with a shitload of new features to justify a $100-$200 price point they will just add a couple of things to each release and sell more of them on the fast release schedule.

Personally I don't give a shit as long as the next "LTS Business release" aka Win 9 gives us the choice of getting rid of that damned metro crap in favor of a standard desktop and they make system builders and OEM pricing cheaper and more transparent.

It's common to keep two generations of console connected to one TV. As I understand it, it's far less common to keep two different PCs connected to one monitor. I wonder how much of that is because a standard PC tower takes up far more physical space than even an XBOX HUEG console.

The other solution is dual-booting. I don't know how easy that still is, whether Windows 8 gets in the way of shortening a partition. But rebooting into another operating system will interrupt your music, web browsing, and mess

One thing people are going to have to get over is that you shouldnt use your Steambox as a full workstation PC, thats a fools game if you want anything resembling a console experience. Hardware is cheap enough now to build dedicated Steamboxes if you want a 'console' like machine. Consoles are an exercise in compromise, keep that in mind when deploying a living room entertainment PC.

VM dude. That old Windows PC that runs windows95 games just runs in a little virtual sandbox with more RMA than you could ever imagine existing back in 95. Or those old DOS games (of which there are many with excellent gameplay) run happily in either a DOS VM, or in an emulator like Dosbox.

vmware player 4 or later, XP32 guest, Linux host 32 or 64 with virtualization hardware and nVidia graphics. Works pretty well, and if you were doing a little special-casing (and Microsoft is doing a lot now, or at least had to in order to get where they are now) it could work very well. Today I think it would be possible for vmware and Microsoft to collaborate on an emulator that would run 100% of Xbox titles, but there's no money in it and vmware is a Microsoft competitor in some ways so it's not happening

I have tried about six different sub-versions of virtualbox on several versions of Ubuntu with a variety of nVidia drivers (usually the specified ones) and I have never had it work. I use XP as the guest. It just explodes every time I try, sometimes taking virtualbox with it. I've tried with new programs and old, with or without Unity, at low resolutions and high, near and far, to and fro, hither and tither, and it always explodes.

This is purely anecdotal bullshit evidence, but for my part it doesn't work a

already own (older games)... would be really stretching it. A Linux version of new big title games would be a gigantic improvement over the current state. Looks like Linux users at least have Steam games to look forward to including... SKYRIM!!! [playonlinux.com].

Funny how crazy marketing / another crappy OS can remove the chains off the competition. Reminds me of what happened to Apple... oh wait what's going* to happen to apple.

Have your Cake and Eat it too! Dual-boot Linux and Whatever your current flavor of Microsoft OS is! Then after you realize you haven't use that MS OS for 6 months or so except to do the monthly updates, You can go ahead and switch over altogether!

I used to use Linux regularly. I stopped because I couldn't find a way to do a task (I was trying to back up a large filesystem to live CDs, and everything I could find choked on directories with a ' in the name.)

It 'just worked' in Windows 2000, so that's what I switched to.

I've tinkered with assorted free *nixes over the years. Last year I decided 'It's been a while, I'll give Linux another go.' So I downloaded a current Ubuntu release. (I don't recall which version - it was the latest stable release at t

Any time they can't do something on Linux, they say it isn't something you should want to do, or something you should do with your computer.

"You want to play games? Sure Linux is GREAT for games we have Tux racers, Battle of Westnoth, Nethack, all kinds of shit! Oh you want to play a new AAA game? You shouldn't want to do that, you should only want to play free games. AAA titles are stupid."

I get the same shit when I talk about audio production and video editing, which is something I do with my system. I've

1. What does MS have for package management? anything that compares to even slackware's primative system? They have still easy to hack web app updates. Linux systems have GPG signed packages. You can even add third party repos to make all packages on the system update together.

Don'e get me started on microsoft's C++ redistributables. GLIBC has been ABI stable since 4.1 which was like what, EONs ago?

If you need packages in linux, they are pulled, from a central repo, which is managed and supported, not installed by your shitty app. Only one set of libraries.

3. Drivers. laughable. Linux had USB 3 drivers 3 years before windows. There is right now a giant glitch with windows USB3 drivers, where linux has rock solid USB3 support. Hands down. Most drivers are baked into the kernel. If they are modules, most systems will autoprobe them at boot.

Windows has to carefully manage drivers. Linux is so idiot proof, the concept of a "Live OS", is viable. One OS installed on a CD or USB stick will work on virtually all desktops, no driver installs needed.

I've used linux live OSs on many many many machines. rarely do you find unsupported hardware. I can probably name them. the old broadcom 43xx series wireless chips need firmware which is license restricted, but otherwise work well with the b43. They haven't been made for years. (superceded by b44xxx, which works as intended), and a few intel cards which need easy to include non-kernel drivers.'

4. buggy desktop - read any review of windows 8. read the feature list and it sounds like gnome 3, released 3 years ago.

only diffrence, people can un-install gnome3 and use other desktops.

which believe it or not, are compatibly thanks to freedesktop.org standards. My desktop from XFCE works in KDE. So do my settings. And all the desktop managers will recognize and list the major DMs, and even enlightenment.

So don't believe the FUD. the only people who write horribly unsupported crappy software is MS, its because for years there was the illusision that you had not other choice, and FUD like the above comment.

The only real problem with linux is the lack of AAA games, and big name software titles, much of that has to do with Windows relentless campaign of FUD dirrected at GNU, Linux, and associated projects, and community as a whole.

Steam is the beginning of the end. There might be a few titles on Linux to start, but there will be more, and it will convince more companies to target linux.

Once this happens, people are going to ask why they give a shit about windows in the first place.

How about doing it with a Steam download that runs on _any_ modern Linux?

Last I checked (Saturday), the current build is confirmed to be working on Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, Debian Squeeze, and the latest Arch distro.

Some folks have had luck installing the.deb on Fedora, but this is unconfirmed by me.

Side note - There are, of course, some driver issues, mostly in the graphics department; I can't run TF2 on my old Dell laptop, as there is apparently no current nor intended support for older Intel GM45 series video cards:(

Fedora has a RPM for it now (from http://spot.fedorapeople.org/steam/ [fedorapeople.org]). There is also a package (built from this one) on OpenSUSE's build service. I can confirm the package works on Fedora 17 and 18 (with the nvidia blob from nvidia, tested TF2 on a Quadro 600 and GTX 460).

> How about doing it with a Steam download that runs on _any_ modern Linux?

Use alien to turn the deb package into a simple tarball.

Then use ldd to see what libraries you are missing.

There's no magic in this sort of thing: Lay down some files. Then lay down some more files to make sure the first set works. Perhaps throw up some advertising and a progress bar.

Chances are that "modern" Linuxen are already going to have what Steam needs since Linuxen are all ultimately the same upstream projects repackaged.

I can't run in on Mageia2 because it insists on glibc_2.15 and all Mageia provides is libc_2.14. Mageia 3 will provide libc_2.17 at least, so that won't be an issue and I've run it in the Mageia beta, so that again is not an issue. I suppose I could compile glibc_2.15 for Mageia2, but what magic does 2.15 provide that 2.14 does not that is needed by Steam? And needing complicated, user-unfriendly methods of running Steam on any modern Linux is not the way to make it a breakthrough product. This is also not

>How about doing it with a Steam download that runs on _any_ modern Linux?

I totally agree. At a minimum, a Fedora rpm should be added and that would likely be useful in Fedora, Mandriva, and Mageia.

It is not just the packaging, it has to do with libraries included and which versions, but it really should not be difficult for them to use LSB for the major stuff and a slightly-older-than-bleeding-edge requirement for the necessary libraries and then offer a tar.gz. Anything really odd COULD just be inclu

Really? Slashdot has a history of doing a lackluster job of editing, but come on. "Team"?

On topic: I'm looking forward to gaming on Linux. I don't care if it's a byproduct of Valve's development of their own console. In much the same way that I looked forward to having a motherboard with no IDE connectors, I can't wait to ditch Windows. The only reason that I keep it around is for gaming. No more wasted space having to format a large part

Why not? Game developers can't be hurt by being given a way to stay independent of any one company. Currently they can play the console vendors off each other, even if the platforms are vendor controlled. On the PC, they've never had anyone but Microsoft.

Why would people bother with this when they can just play practically all of (if not actually all of) the same games on the windows PC that they already have?

Because I want a choice other than "Microsoft or no games at all." I'm not alone, apparently.

You may not be alone... but do you seriously think that there are actually enough people like you to make this a successful venture?

...because the existing demographic(sic) has nothing to do with the future of computing. Android is set to overtake Windows this year as the dominant OS. Right now coding a Windows[Direct X] only game shuts out half of your potential audience, and Windows market share is set to decline further. The future is cross platform and steam is already there? The fact that one market is smaller than another is irrelevant when portability is not an afterthought...if it is Windows is likely to lose out not Linux.

They would bother because the only thing that's currently holding them back from using linux/Mac OS is having their games available.

And since when have they announced their pricing for the steam box? They announced that their dev kit was roughly as fast as a $1000 PC (though the specs look more like $7-800 to me). Given that it'll only be launched in about a year, that'll mean that that speed will be achievable with $5-600 consumer parts. Add into that that valve will be getting OEM prices, and it'll lik

Valve will then of course do exactly what Nintendo/Sony/MS do to make sure games studios get working on games for their device. This in turn will have the side effect that every game released for steambox will also be available on Linux. Given that almost all of the APIs for linux (and I'd bet heavily 100% of the ones Valve say are guaranteed to be available) are also available on Mac OS, and I'd bet that you're looking at all those games also being available for Mac OS.

Do you honestly believe that Valve, singlehandedly, is capable of producing enough content on their own exclusively for their device (because if they also make it for windows, then people won't generally bother getting the console because it is traditionally exclusive content that moves consoles), that people would bother to get one?

How much unique content did Sony or MS manage to create for the PS3 or XBox 360? The answer is not very much, they don't need to, and nor do Valve –only have the content the others do, plus one or two interesting titles. Every console maker has been able to do this when they've released their new shiny box. And just like Sony could do it for the PS/PS2/PS3, Valve will be able to do it for the Steambox, because they have clout.

And what incentive will other game studios have to make games for this console that is running an OS that's been around for 20 years, and not once gotten to even 2% of the end-user consumer computer use outside of the server market?

The exact same incentive they had to make games for the PS3, which runs a

Actually, Sony would probably be relatively pleased. It's in their interest to get game devs using APIs like OpenGL and OpenAL for their engines, only Microsoft would see it as a bad thing as it would help unlock their D3D lock out.

In your rush to vent your anonymous rage against Linux, you failed to notice one thing. The person you accused of being a "fucking nerd dickhead" for posting the solution (period3)...is the same as the person who posted the problem (period3)...

Any word on having the Half Life / Portal / Left 4 Dead games working on Linux? These are part of my "must have installed" games, that I go back to from time to time, so I'll need them working on Linux as well, thank you:)

Well, for one, if you build your own PC's and don't want to pirate software, then Linux is free. Saving the cost of an OS is big for me. You also have a system that is FAR less likely to be affected by malware.

Also, once you get good on Linux the power of having a Unix command line available really becomes a boon. It took me a good year to 18 months of primary use on Linux, but at this point I truly feel more comfortable and efficient in Linux than in Windows. I use a 2nd computer on a KVM switch that runs Windows for playing games, but that's literally the only thing I do on that system - I genuinely dislike using Windows beyond that. If the games were available for Linux then I'd have little reason to keep a Windows machine/install at all.

Also, once you get good on Linux the power of having a Unix command line available really becomes a boon. It took me a good year to 18 months of primary use on Linux, but at this point I truly feel more comfortable and efficient in Linux than in Windows.

This would be a valuable observation if you had first spent 18 months at the Windows command line. Of course, very few people are going to be willing to spend 18 months to get up to speed with using an OS.

For the expert, the command line is hard to beat for speed and efficiency. For anyone who isn't an expert, the command line is a major hindrance. They do far better with the point and click graphical interface. So I'm not sure better efficiency after 18 months of training is really a big selling point to most people.

One thing Microsoft has done with Windows is to pinch all the great ideas in Linux, so today you have package managers and partition tools and all the other fancy things that a few years ago were Linux only.

One of the ideas they stole is the powerful command line, only they made it slightly less like an inbuilt scripting language and made it into a full-blown scripting language. Then they relented and made it into a full-blown scripting language built into a command line. Its

But the true power of the Linux command line is that it is not something just invented. It is Unix/Bourne/Shell, something that has been used by professionals and taught in schools for many decades on dozens of various Unix/Linux variants. It is even mostly the same on MacOS. There are hundreds of good books and it has a lot of mind share... probably many times that what "Powershell" will be able to obtain under MS-Windows.

Also, once you get good on Linux the power of having a Unix command line available really becomes a boon. It took me a good year to 18 months of primary use on Linux, but at this point I truly feel more comfortable and efficient in Linux than in Windows.

Yeah, that's a very strong argument for switching, I'm surprised that it is not used more often.

You have to understand where people are coming from. Before I made a serious effort to switch to Linux I had been using Windows for around 15 years. You have to expect a transitional period there, though if the switching user was never really that proficient with Windows in the first place then that period can be shortened.

I see that you are being sincere here, so I won't make another sarcastic reply. I just think that stronger arguments than that will be needed to convince people to switch over. The command line is a non starter for most people who have no special interest in information technologies. As for the cost of the OS, it is rather immaterial right now, because few people buy it at retail, so they never see the bill. Finally, I think the gaming crowd is not the best one to cater to for an alternate OS, because1. there are not that many games on Linux;2. the small community makes it difficult to get support when it doesn't work, for instance sound issues are pretty frequent, at least in my experience;3. I have seen some performance issues, but that was a few years ago and the situation may have improved;4. Gaming rigs can be expensive, so again, OS price is less of a factor.

I would expand on these points, but I have to go now. Please accept my apologies, for I will not be able to answer any reply you make to this post in less than several hours, perhaps even until tomorrow.

It's not only malware that exploits defects in an Internet service's input checking, as in your example of Apache vs. IIS. It's also malware that tricks desktop users into installing it, such as surreptitious installation of a keylogger or a fake antivirus or the like. Consider what would happen if a user puts mistaken trust in a rogue PPA to see dancing bunnies.

Doubtful. Apache is more popular than IIS and still people target IIS for malware.

It's not that much less popular that it wouldn't be a lucrative target. It's what, somewhere around 15% vs Apache's 60%? That's still millions of servers.

Curiously enough, when I went to look up the stats on Secunia a couple years ago, IIS 6+ actually had less known vulnerabilities than the corresponding versions of Apache (i.e. covering the same time period). Don't know if that is still the case, though.

Windows is still trying to be backwards-compatible with an API and end-user experience that was designed around single-user systems, whereas the UNIXy legacy is from large university systems where users were expected to be hostile (and, frequently, were).

Security on Windows has been getting a lot better over the last decade and a half, and it's going to continue to get better as Microsoft stops supporting legacy APIs and continues to modify workflows to adjust user expectations, but I'm still not much inclined to accept the assertion that there's no remaining difference that isn't directly and exclusively caused by the delta in marketshare.

Ah, no. Security is an engineering objective, not a history from legacy systems.

It's both.

If software you want to be backwards-compatible with assumes that it's going to have the rights to write to the area of disk where its executables are stored? That's a security issue. (End users are accustomed to granting business software written with the above assumptions escalated privileges on a regular basis? The end-user training to evade security that provides is definitely a security issue).

ubuntu usually uses a standard VGA driver in that case, and does display a desktop (or it did before unity, I haven't been in that situation since) it then ask you if you want to download the proprietary nvidia or amd driver.

Really!?! I've had plenty of linux systems break when using the built in update tools... At least some of the software I was using... and, ironically enough, it's happened to me far more than my osx or windows systems. As for preserving configs, for a while the default user config locations changed from ~/.appname (file) to ~/appname/file to ~/.config/appname/ and different apps doing it differently.. not *that* easy. There are a *LOT* of reasons to choose Linux over windows what you are talking about isn't it.

Steam is on the PC team, as opposed to the console team. Especially with Big Picture and the ability to filter for controller-friendly games, Valve seems to have taken a shot at encouraging people to set up a living-room PC instead of a major console.

Drivers need some work still. TF2 isnt nearly as smooth on Linux as it is on Win on the same hardware.I get 'micro-stuttering' on Linux in TF2. Same map, same server and it sutters on Linux. Its totally playable, but its drawbacks kill it for a pixel junkie like me.. When that goes away, ill consider using Linux for my Valve gaming goodness (L4D2, TF2 etc).

Right now the new Windows is being called "Windows Blue". From what I can gather, it won't have a Start button and the Start Screen will be the main interface. Not much change from Windows 8 - just polishing the turd again.

How are end users supposed to discover that something like RetroUI Pro [betanews.com] exists? And why should users have to pay extra rather than have it built into the operating system? Perhaps the fact that Window 8 users don't know what a Window 8 user can already do is telling about the usability of Window 8.

Hopefully a new era of game dev is upon us. This is not only great for linux, but great for people like myself who only use windows for games. Hopefully the video card makers will beef up their effort writing drivers and software for compatibility.

Hopefully a new era of game dev is upon us. This is not only great for linux, but great for people like myself who only use windows for games. Hopefully the video card makers will beef up their effort writing drivers and software for compatibility.

The resurgence of PC gaming started a couple of years ago and has only been picking up steam (see what I did there?). 2012 brought us some PC-centric games that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, when we believed PC gaming was dying.

The moves Valve is making will only be wind at the back of PC gaming, and by the time the ultra-expensive next gen consoles come out, the landscape is going to look plenty different.

The future of gaming is not handheld. It's not console and it's not behind a walled garden. From AAA to the rawest indie title, PC gaming's future has not looked this bright in a long time.

It was May 2010 that the Humble Bundle launched it has had 7 Cross Platform Desktop versions...4 others that include Android...and 6 Developer Specific bundles, already proving Linux as a viable gaming platform.

Steam is late to the the party. In reality the new world its "cross platform gaming" that is becoming increasing important as Windows as both a platform and a brand lose relevance.

Your the only one everyone else is moving to Libreoffice and Google Docs, The iPad proved that few really need or want office..but then its off-topic. Ironically the best selling laptop right now on Amazon is a Chromebook guess your list of requirements is out of touch with most users..

Your the only one everyone else is moving to Libreoffice and Google Docs,.

No, no they're not. If your clients, boss, or coworkers are sending you Excel spreadsheets or heavily formatted Word documents for you to work on and return and you insist on using LibreOffice you will find yourself without clients, boss, or coworkers. You don't get to tell them to format their files as Office 2003 and hand them a list of formatting, drawing, template, and macro features they will have to stop using. MS owns you, or at least they own me. Heck, I tried to set up LibreOffice for my Mom but ev

That's great and all but there are less Linux games on Steam than even for OS X. And having to hope that the ~90% of Windows that games that will never be ported will work in Wine is not a good proposition.

Absolutely...but that was when Windows was a dominant platform. Increasingly we are seeing games exclusive to android, and not appearing on windows at all, and we are seeing the launch of by my count 4 Linux based consoles this year. Games are coming to Linux thick and fast the Humble Bundle games alone total 70+...and that is a small independent developer, nothing like the size of Steam.

When Windows was a dominant platform? You're joking, right? You aren't actually trying to suggest that mobile exclusives are a problem for Windows?

To be frank, not many PC users appreciate mobile ports when they happen anyway, given that they generally cost $1 on the mobile device, and $6-15 on PC as a straight port. Most people just don't see the value, and for good reason... Save for very few games, very few successfully make the transition to PC and do well.

Microsoft plans to introduce a "windows app store".This is a huge threat to Valve's business since Microsoft wouldn't care about high margins on stuff sold in it.

No...Window *has* launched a Windows app store. Its not just a huge threat to Valve with a bundled a software shop. It threatens to become Windows only shop [copying Apples closed garden]. Microsoft intends to become the *only* place to get software on the windows platform, not undercut the opposition.

They don't get more profit from Linux vs. MS-Windows. But by having a platform that Microsoft can't corrupt or control, it means that Valve can remain relevant and for much longer. That has a great value to Valve.

It also means Valve can develop a console/set-top using free Linux and pay nothing to MS or any other company to do so. That has a great value to Valve.

[Real] Linux compatibility could also be a great step to an entry into Android Linux for Valve... the #1 mobile platform in the world. That has a great value to Valve.